Fear Factory
Mechanize

Until a few years ago, Dino Cazares and Burton C. Bell couldn't even stand the sight of each other, let alone write a steamroller album like this together. The catalyst was that Ministry concert that brought the two musicians back together.

There was an obvious need for Dino Cazares in Fear Factory because in recent years, the formula "Christian on guitar doing what Dino used to do" worked for one album (the beautiful "Archetype"), but by the next album (the disappointing "Transgression"), the new recipe had stopped bearing fruit. The Factory that had so frightened and innovated in the '90s was about to close down for good.

For still unclear reasons, only Cazares and Bell from the original lineup are part of this unexpected return. The cyborg Herrera and the Belgian-origin bassist Wolbers have been ousted by the renewed duo and replaced by the former Everything (no need to list all the bands Gene has served in) Gene Hoglan, and by Byron Stroud (who already played bass on the last two albums without Cazares); today the two exiles have formed Arkaea together with half of "Threat Signal," a disappointing industrial-metalcore band whose debut "Years in the Darkness" miserably loses the comparison with this hallucinatory "Mechanize". I think everyone regrets (from an emotional-symbolic perspective) that there's only half of Fear Factory in this reunion, but hearing Arkaea, from a musical standpoint, I don’t think it would have been the same.

The only critique one can make of "Mechanize" is its being, fundamentally, a nostalgic album. The Fear Factory that in the '90s had built a new way of understanding metal today, in 2010, dives back into the glorious past, the past of futuristic works like "Soul of a New Machine," the epochal "Demanufacture" or "Obsolete." That's the essence of "Mechanize," which among the first three albums of the band, it mostly revisits, coming close to reaching the greatness of the second album.

A Dino Cazares in excellent form (a good sign after the recent and disappointing Divine Heresy album "Bringer of Plagues," far from "Bleed the Fifth"), a Hoglan-Stroud rhythm section that, obviously, obliterates everything obliterable, but above all, a Burton C. Bell in a true state of grace (both in the aggressive parts where the brutality of the debut seems to resurface, and in the beautiful clean parts) put on the table 10 jewels of industrial death metal (or cyberthrash or however the hell you want to call it).

From the cadenced and creeping assault of the title track to the closing "Final Exit" (a robotic and moving semi-ballad reminiscent of the wonderful "Resurrection" from "Obsolete"), a scenario of devastation, social degradation, oppression, and exploitation marks those (strictly metallic) face-punches like "Powershifter" (which really delighted me before the album release since it was released as a preview), the single "Fear Campaign" (with a very interesting theme), the monolithic "Oxidizer" and "Controlled Demolition" (which features an enjoyable chorus and an epic finale).

Great melodies in "Designing the Enemy" (here too, the style of "Obsolete" and somewhat the debated "Digimortal" is evoked), excellent work also in "Industrial Discipline" (one of the songs that could be most representative of the album, a typical Fear Factory song from "Demanufacture"), "Metallic Division" is a brief interlude that stands out.

The award for the best song definitely goes to "Christploitation", with its crushing chorus, its haunting piano motif, and the very fast riffs that wink at thrash metal, one of the best Fear Factory songs in general.

Also worth mentioning is the excellent work of Rhys Fulber on samples and keyboards (this musician is no novice, besides having been in Front Line Assembly, he was the keyboardist under Max Cavalera in the sole live appearance of the phenomenal Nailbomb).

As mentioned at the beginning, the Fear Factory was at risk of failing, but fortunately, things took a different turn, and today Fear Factory with "Mechanize" are ready to reclaim their place on the modern metal scene, a place that sees them once again among the first, among the best.